The Sachems, one of Columbia’s two “Senior Societies,” are a low-key secret-ish society. Most Columbia students don’t even know they exist. The two societies aim to pull together the most powerful senior students on campus, with some taps based on hierarchical lineages (i.e. one student body president taps the next year’s, and so on for various clubs). We’ve no idea what they’ve been up to this year, but we do know who 14/15 of them are.

Last week, Yale students received two university-wide Clery Act emails informing them that two Yale students were victims of “sexual assault by an acquaintance, who is also a Yale student” at the Sigma Phi Epsilon house on February 8th. February 8th was the night of the annual “Dom” party thrown by the Women in Power Society (WIPS), a secret society, which was held in the SigEp house.

The “Dom” party is an infamous, no-cellphones-allowed event. From what we hear, people dress up in BDSM gear and porn is projected on the walls as hot freshmen guys pass around drinks. Interestingly, it’s also generalized as one of the safer party SigEp hosts: there is a closed guest list with doors closing at 11 pm and everyone (besides those hot freshmen boys) is over 21-years-old.

For two assaults to happen on a night that typically gets by without major public notice is surprising–but only considering its history of safety. Dom is a party full of porn, S&M, and lots of alcohol, after all. In a statement, SigEp said that the assault allegations are not against brothers of the fraternity, consistent with rumors we have been hearing.

According to a nice long-read from the Yale Herald, society numbers have been booming in the past few years. What was once for the elite of the elite is now home to more than 50% of seniors, who have been refounding societies, like Mace and Chain, or starting their own from scratch, like the still young Double Cuffs.

This can only be seen as a great equalizer across Yale’s campus. Now, even members of the secret society Spaghetti and Meatballs, or as Rumpus puts it, S&M, can say they were part of a system that housed the Bushes.

Just like yesterday’s big reveal of the newest members of Yale’s ultra-secret Skull and Bones society, we really and truly can not verify this list these lists (the pains and hardships of anonymous emails).

But you can! Let us know if we fucked up. We’ll forever be grateful. Well, not really, but we know how much you guys like calling us out.

Well, “rapey” is a strong word. It was something, though, that’s for sure. For those of you (like myself) uninitiated in the ways of upper-crust Yale douchebaggery, let’s start with some introductions. The Pundits are Yale’s “senior prank society.” Now this might sound sort of stupid and puerile to you. (That was my initial reaction.) But apparently its sort of a big deal. Joe Lieberman was even a member! (So some of them are probably bastards.)

That, in fact, is a notion this story helps confirm. On February 19, the Pundits held an elaborate fête for potential members. And, if reports are to be any judge, they apparently acted like perfect hosts. (If by “perfect hosts” you mean skeevy, weirdo Chester the Molesters.)

About 50 people attended the party, which was by invitation only and hosted by the Pundits, multiple attendees said. They added that students were told to arrive at the party in costume, but midway through the night were told to disrobe.

From the get-go, this sounds pretty bad. The Pundits apparently played off the natural power dynamic — the guests were, after all, trying to get in to the club – and pressured them to chug down large quantities of alcohol, then get naked. It’s like an Eyes Wide Shut parody from college hell. Several attendees even ended up at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, presumably for alcohol-related badness. But what’s worse even than the alcohol and nakedness is the alleged sexual misconduct.

After the jump, the most damning portion of the YDN’s article on the event:

Our frenemies over at Rumpus did some pretty impressive investigative work and uncovered every member of every Yale Secret Society this year, 41 in total. They then sent it to us, presumably as a peace offering. For Yalies, here’s the online exclusive, since Rumpus never puts its stuff online. For non-Yalies, marvel at phenomenal society names and a picture of this year’s Skull and Bones class. After the jump:

Here at IvyGate, we usually tend to refrain from writing about ourselves (hell, who are we kidding… we’re Ivy-Leaguers. Self-promotion FTW). Yet, today marks a proud day in our humble blog’s scandalized history. The glass-house-dwelling stone throwers over at Yale’s drunken, debaucherous, dastardly, and delightful tabloid, Rumpus, today released a scathing IvyGate expose, gracing the last two pages of its final issue of the year.

After hard-hitting investigative journalism like “American Negro Gets Bored,” “Senior Hook Up Bingo,” Modern Love criticism, pornography, hipster-hating, lies, and half-naked pictures of its sultry, YD”P.N.”-loving Editor, how could we ask for more! Reaching our fill of typos, libel, ressentiment, social-masturbation, and “cock goblins,” we turn the page, feeling imperceptibly dirty… only to encounter this hysterical feature: “Remedial Media Awards: Yale’s Top Five Publications or, A Tribute to Alex Klein.”

The facts: Our beloved Bullblog is savaged for its hipster dilletantism, inflated sense of social importance, and journalistic frivolity, while the Yale Daily “News” receives genuine compliments and amorous overtures from the article’s “anonymous” author. And yes, there’s IvyGate, in first place! We didn’t even prepare a speech! From a publication that prints at least four times a year and that everyone reads, it’s truly an honor.

Wait a second… why is ex-editor and superstar Adam Clark Estes being lampooned for pouring too much effort into a “terrible, irrelevant blog.” (Maybe our 1,376,977 yearly readers — most of which hate us — should get in a fight with their 5,000 — most of which hate them. Then again, their middling few are supes cool Yaliens, so it would be close.)

The final page of Rumpus’ last issue of the year? Eat your heart out Pulitzer! We certainly can’t condemn our genealogical brethren at Rumpus for disorganization. There’s the five part list of “reasons why Alex Klein is brilliant.” Aw… you shouldn’t have. Oh wait, they’re insults:

Dan and I update often and have expanded IvyGate’s readership (to ~7,000 unique visitors a day). Ouch(?)

We totally released “wrong” Secret Society lists and noted that they had not been released yet. You caught us! A wopping one Skull and Bones difference, two Wolf’s Head differences, and zero Scroll and Key differences. So, that’s 3 out of 46… calculating… calculating… a 93.5% correspondence with the Pundits’ list.

We posted about our alumni. How douchey and braggy, totally unlike the only pseudo-maintained section of Rumpus‘ webpage:

Although Rumpus may think the focus of their award-feature is IvyGate and its co-editor, really, the star attraction is the tabloid itself. In fifth place, with trademark self-deprecation, the Rumpus self-honors. At least they did it for the lolz.

And so did we. Rumpus and IvyGate are practically twins separated at birth. We also make typos, self-promote, slip into snark, and fuck up. After all, we’re just uppity (yes, uppity), hormone-addled muck-rakers, spreading stories of Ivy League ridiculousness in between papers, parties and trysts. So are Rumpus, and here’s their Editor-in-Chief, who just emailed us to apologize:

we do this sort of thing in remedial almost every issue (our first remedial of the year was 2 pages of why we hate Tom Kaplan, we don’t actually hate him, he didn’t mind at all). We’ll also be the first to admit that we have no credibility criticizing publications when we’re clearly the worst run organization on campus and haven’t so much as written a real article all year.

But, despite all our foibles, making unsubstantiated ad-hominem attacks behind the veil of a pseudonym… well, we’d rather post about stuff like that than do it ourselves. So we are.

All that aside, our evil twin Yale tabloiders, we stand by what we said in that personal, complimentary email we wrote you – which you mockingly reprinted, without our permission: we love you. We’re proud of our dubious award; thanks for the publicity.

In a cleverly disguised email from a faux-Admissions Office account, Yale’s pro-pranksters just made good on their annual tradition of society-curtain-drawing. Interestingly, this year they’ve only gotten their hands on Skull and Bones, Wolf’s Head, and Scroll and Key. We had your backs on this a week or so ago, but the Pundits definitely did it with more style (and also, maybe better information; a handful of names are different than our reports.) For what it’s worth, here’s their take:

Yale Students,

We here at the Admissions Office want to thank you all for helping us throw a fantastic Bulldog days -

our most successful yet! After getting a great look at all we have to offer here, our pre-freshmen and

freshwomen are “choosing Yale!” Accepted students have begun to declare their matriculation, and

Yes, it’s that time of year! Through an anonymous tip, I am happy to provide–for your delectation–the 2010-2011 tap classes of two of Yale’s first-string societies: Wolf’s Head and Scroll and Key. Although we can’t vouch for 100% accuracy, we’ll put our editorial weight behind these lists based on source credibility. Not much editorial content to add: either you know these hot young future oligarchs, or you don’t. (Or, like me, you don’t go to Yale. Sorry, we’ll put up a post on Dartmouth on Thursday!) Who wants to be America’s next top secret society member? These Yalies do:

Unconditional Raves

IvyGate has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New York Observer, Newsweek, New Yorker, and other publications, as well as NBC, MSNBC, Fox News, Drudge Report, Gawker, The Huffington Post, Wonkette, Jezebel, The Awl, and many more. Most are horrified.